Saudi granted asylum in UK as rich family threatened to behead her for leaving husband

A SAUDI woman has claimed asylum in the UK after her affluent family said they would “cut off your head like we do to the sheep” for wanting to leave her husband.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The woman’s brother also tried to strangle her after sending the text, while her father attacked her with a piece of furniture in a campaign of abuse.

The Family Division of the High Court in London heard she had an “impossibly harsh and restricted life”.

Sir Peter Singer said: “The mother maintains that her life would in current and foreseeable circumstances be impossibly harsh and restricted were she to return to Saudi Arabia.

Two women walking in Saudi Arabia

“The mother’s account of her treatment at the hands of her family included an incident when her return to (her husband) was induced by a serious family row during which her father struck her on the head and shoulders with a piece of furniture and one of her brothers was only restrained from continuing to strangle her by the intervention of her mother.”

The families of both the woman and her husband were strict in obeying Saudi culture and the principles of the Sharia law.